From a Womans Notebook - Another Auction

After my experience at the Fruit and Vegetable Show, I vowed to pass by all auctions on the other side. Buty of courses it was no use. They are far too alluring.

 Only yesterday, I saw men unloading a van outside the same tin tabernacle where the Show was held. I stopped to read the huge poster which announced for that afternoon a Sale “absolutely without reserve” of Valuable Household Furniture and Effects. As the valuable article then being carried in was a broken sewing machine, my curiosity was aroused and I followed the men in. There was the most amazing collection of rubbish I have ever seen. I simply had to return that afternoon to discover what kind of folk would bid for a , stuffed fox in a case, a bamboo bookcase, or most exciting exhibit of all - a dressmaker's dummy with a Victorian figure. 

When I returned the auction was in full swing. The front seats were occupied by elderly women with fierce expressions and very bored looking men who bid by raising a languid hand.Alas, I never knew who had coveted the Victorian lady. She already stood superciliously among the sold articles. Perhaps she was bought by someone who sees in the present cult of hair and skirts a sure swing back to the bust and wasp waist, and who will bring her out again in her glory in a few years’ time. 

For a while I watched oil paintings of astonishing crudity and basket chairs in the last stages of disrepair knocked down to eager buyers for a few shillings apiece, and then, alas, they swung up an oak table, sturdy and solid, of the good pre-war vintage, just the height for coffee, or tea by the fire. And I fell. I held back for a time, and then I raised a tentative hand and the hammer fell.  As I had only looked in for the fun of the thing, my conscience smote me, and I hasty retired to the back of the hall out of the way of temptation. And there I found another Auction Fan, chained to a pram, and simply itching to get in the thick of it. A fellow feeling made me offer to mind the baby, and with one gasp of gratitude she pushed the pram at me and dived into the throng.

 It was a nice baby. It had just finished a bottle, and felt warm, full and contented, so it only blinked sleepy eyes at me, and gave me a fat smile. I stood by gently rocking the pram, and the baby gradually dosed off. Time passed,  and I realised that the mother certainly did share my weakness. As the sale went on chairs, tables and wardrobes ‘kept being rushed to the back of the hall where we stood, and I was ‘obliged, ‘to move gradually over to the right. I took up a position in a clear patch but before long we were being built in again. Manoeuvring round a Chesterfield, we made our way to the space by the door. Her, however we were in the way of those ‘coming and going, so we came further in again. It was getting late by then, and I began to think longingly of tea. Higher grew the piles of furniture round us, and I began to be frowned on by the auctioner's men as I perpetually got in their way. Feeling very hot and self conscious, I longed to disown the baby publicly.

 At long last, the mother came, flushed with victory. I wonder what trophy she had snatched from the other bidders. I dared not stop to ask. Pushing the pram back into her hands, I went while the going was good. 

Shall I avoid auctions in the future,do you think?